Analyzing Idioms Including Numbers and Comparing Them with Their Uzbek Equivalents
Keywords:
Idioms, numbers, EnglishAbstract
Idioms are integral to language, reflecting cultural worldviews through figurative expressions. Among them, numerical idioms uniquely convey complex meanings via culturally embedded numerical symbolism.
Both English and Uzbek languages exhibit rich traditions of numerical idioms, yet their usage, structural rigidity, and cultural symbolism differ significantly. English idioms often display fixed patterns, while Uzbek equivalents reveal more syntactic flexibility and cultural specificity.
Despite the prevalence of numerical idioms in both languages, few comparative studies address their cross-linguistic structural, semantic, and cultural dimensions, particularly within a translation and pedagogical context.
This study aims to analyze English idioms incorporating numbers and compare them with their Uzbek counterparts in terms of meaning, form, cultural relevance, and translatability.
The analysis reveals semantic convergence in idioms like “kill two birds with one stone” but also significant divergence requiring paraphrase or cultural substitution. English idioms tend to be fixed, while Uzbek idioms accommodate flexible syntactic adaptation.
By integrating insights from phraseology, pragmatics, and translation studies, the study uniquely highlights how numerical values serve as metaphorical and cultural signifiers across languages. It also presents original data through tabulated comparisons and a pie chart categorizing idioms by numerical range.
These findings have practical relevance in language teaching, intercultural communication, and translation. They underscore the importance of cultural competence and idiomatic fluency for effective bilingual education and suggest directions for corpus-based future research.
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